Lent

Last Tuesday night I decided to give up chocolate for Lent. I know, Mormons don't celebrate Lent, but why not?

According to the omniscient source of Internet verity - wikipedia - Lent is:

"the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer - through prayer, penitence, alms giving and self-denial - for the annual commemoration during Holy week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ."

I had friends growing up celebrated Lent, but I never bothered to find out what it was all about until now. And I have to say that I'm a little sad that I didn't know about this holiday tradition sooner. What a beautiful way to remember our Savior and celebrate his death and resurrection - not just for one Sunday, but for 40 days.

This or That?

So, I've had a few people ask me if I've registered yet. No, not really. I can figure most things out - onesies: check; car seat: check; diapers and wipes: check and check. But there are some things I don't know about.

What's a necessity and what's a luxery? Do I really need a diaper pail? If so, which one is the best one? What about pumps? Baby monitors? Bottles? Pacifiers? Nasal aspirators? I'm sure in some categories most items are created equal (I can't imagine there's that much difference from one nasal aspirator to another). But I don't know. Sure I can read online reviews until my eyes cross, but I'd rather hear from people I know and trust.

So, help me out all of you mothers....what items/brands are on your needs list? What items are a luxery that have become a necessity?

Inquiring mind wants to know.

♥ Happy Valentine's Day ♥

Daniel made me the cutest pop-up Valentine's Card - isn't he so talented!?

I made him some homemade chocolates. Don't be too impressed, they were actually quite easy. I made peanut clusters and almond toffee.

Peanut Clusters: melt equal amounts of chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and butterscotch chips together. Stir in desired amount of roasted peanuts and drop into mini muffin liners.

Sooo, easy and sooo tasty!

Almond Toffee: combine 1 cup sugar, 1 cup butter and 1/4 water in saucepan and cook to the hard crack stage. Mix in 1/2 chopped almonds and spread onto a buttered baking dish or cookie sheet. Sprinkle with choclate chips and let them melt and then spread all over the toffee layer.

This was my first experience making any type of candy that had to be cooked to a "stage." I think I had beginner's luck because the toffee actually turned out o.k. even though I really had no idea what I was doing. At first I tried checking the temperature with the thermometer, but I'm not so sure my thermometer works because the temp never got above 200 degrees (the hard crack stage is 290). So I gave up the thermometer and just used the cold water test and it worked out!

Lately

There really isn't much to write about lately - except for food. Daniel has been very busy with school work, so that means that I get kind of bored in the evenings while he's doing homework. I decided that I should probably try and do something productive instead of just remain bored, so I've been baking. Now, we can certainly argue about the "productivity" of baking, but at least it's keeping be occupied.

Here are a few of thing things I've made lately:

No Cook Peanut Butter Fudge - This was really easy to make and tasty, but definitely not the consistancy of real fudge. I felt like it would have been better rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate (a la Buckeyes) and so that's exactly what I did after a few days with the remaining fudge and it was delish.

Mom Gerow's Brownies - I'm not sure if she's actually given these tasty treats a name, but she came up with the recipe so that's what I'll call them for now. These became one of my all-time favorite treats the moment I tasted them (yes, they're that good). So, I made them for a co-worker's birthday this week and they were a hit.

Bottom layer: make a 9x13 pan of brownies (any box variety will do) except stir in 1/2 cup peanuts to the batter.

Middle layer: cream together 8 oz cream cheese, 1/2 cup (or more) peanut butter, 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Then fold in 8 oz whipped topping and spread over the cooled brownies.

Top layer: spread 8 oz whipped topping over the top and sprinkle with 1/2 cup each peanuts and mini chocolate chips.

Chill for at least 2 hours and then enjoy - and try not to eat the whole pan yourself!

Molten Chocolate Cakes - I've had these before but never made them myself so I thought I'd give it a try. There are lots of recipes out there, but I chose this one because I had all the ingredients and it was easy to scale down from the 8 serving size to a 2 serving size (see, I do have some self control). The recipe does call for 5 eggs which doesn't really divide nicely, but I just used 1 large egg and it seemed to turn out fine. And I made them in ramekins instead of muffin tins. Because I've never made these before, I wasn't sure how they were supposed to look when "done" so after the 8-10 minutes of baking time in the recipe, they still looked way under cooked to me, so I let them bake for about 2 more minutes.

I guess all of them were a success because Daniel ate them - but then again, there's not much that he won't eat - especially if it has sugar in it :)

Sorry I don't have any pictures, I forget until the foods already eaten.